


Upon this Linoleum Ground

by yikesyikesyikes



Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Merry Christmas I Forgot About This I Will Be Honest. Whoops.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:48:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28417884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yikesyikesyikes/pseuds/yikesyikesyikes
Summary: I er uh,, Rigby mentioned having read all gaurance fanfics so for xmas I thought i'd write you guys one, and then i forgort to give it to you. I;m currently posting this in the middle of a bedwars match, i love you both mama y papa :3 <3
Relationships: Garroth Ro'Meave/Laurance Zvahl
Kudos: 13





	Upon this Linoleum Ground

**Author's Note:**

> BARK BARK BARK

Everything seemed too dim in comparison to the Irene Dimensions neverending white. It was the kind of all encompassing brightness that made you forget darkness even existed in the first place. To others, the monotone marble walls with their accented purple stained glass might have been beautiful, and in another lifetime Laurance might have agreed. But in this lifetime, to this Laurance, closing his eyes in the forest and thinking back to where he was only moments ago simply made him feel empty. There was something about the rolling fields of pure white surrounding the castle that didn’t give off an aura of light, but rather an aura of nothing. Like outside of those walls existence just ceased. 

Fear wasn’t something he’d often felt. Bitter rage, impulsively jealous anger maybe. Those were emotions he happened to feel daily despite dampening them down in his subconscious, but fear? Fear wasn’t something Laurance had grown accustomed to, but in those fifteen minutes in that blank openness, fear had become a friend. He had felt its warm embrace as his sword clashed against…

“Laurance, are you okay?”

Words cut through his blanketed silence like a knife. It was then, kneeling on the ground, hands shaky and caked with sand, that he realised he’d been crying. 

“How- How could some heartless monster steal from the dead?” Laurance heard the tremble in his voice. Embarrassing. But he couldn’t bring himself to begin to care.

Aphmau's hand laid gently on his shoulder. “Laurance, calm down.”

Soul sand was not the kind of sand you’d find on a beach. Soul sand wasn’t finely grated down to a powder, it was made of sticky sharp pieces of rock and glass made for burials, and the edges were already starting to cut into the blisters that covered his palms. Practically, it was meant to stop graverobbers but Meteli had always carried a different reasoning for it. Citizens of Meteli liked to say the sharpness of Soul Sand was so that you’d cut your hands upon the burial, as an oath of sorts to show your love for the person buried. A more sentimental sort of blood rite. It was an acknowledgement that whoevers grave you were helping to dig was someone you cared for enough that you’d give some of your own life force to make their death worth anything. A reminder of both the bond you share with the dead, and also a more literal interpretation of the pain their loss caused. There had been too much loss lately. 

“Who would do this to Ungryths grave? This is some kind of horrible dream right?” His mouth tasted of cotton. “I don’t want to live in a world where everything has changed. Where my friend.. Where Garroth once hated me and is now… This can’t be real.”

“We need to accept that this has happened.” Aphmau murmured.

“Yeah. We do.” As he stood up he didn’t even feel the shards digging into his skin. After all, he’d endured worse pain, and not only in the physical sense. The others needed him now, they needed him to be okay. They needed to look to him and see the Head Guard he had been. Everyone else was crumbling around him but Laurance couldn’t fall alongside his friends, no matter how much he wanted to, because they were relying on him to know what to do next. He had to keep it together because despite the emotional wasteland of memories he was wading through, the first rule of being a guard was to protect others before yourself. And if Laurance wasn’t a guard then, well, maybe he just wasn’t anything, and that was not something he was prepared to think about. 

Aphmau soon rushed off to go check on the others and oddly a part of Laurance was glad to see her go. Anytime before this if you had asked him, he would have missed her presence but now being alone with his thoughts was comforting in a sense. Silence was never something Laurance had been comfortable with. Silence was a looming beast made of discomfort and dangerous thoughts, and as an extrovert all Laurance had ever known was tossing himself into whirlwinds of discussions and sharp-tongued flirting to silence the monster in his head. Now it felt right. It would have been wrong to walk down the decrepit streets of Phoenix Drop with Aphmau by his side because she’d never been the one there. No, the footsteps echoing in tune with his own, the shared smiles on patrol, the quiet conversations after dark for the village... These streets had belonged to him and to Garroth, they always had. 

“Mind if I join you?” Zoeys quiet voice was a startling surprise but not an unpleasant one.

“No, I always have time in my day for the presence of a beautiful lady.” 

She huffed a breath of amusement but it didn’t meet her eyes. “It’s been a long fifteen years of trying to get that portal open, I almost forgot how much of a flatterer you were... Are.”

Are. Because it was present tense now, because they were here and alive, and it was all because of him. Sacrifices were something Laurance had respected, so why did this one fill him with so much rage?

“I think I hate him.” He said simply. He didn’t need to tell Zoey which ‘him’ he meant.

“I can tell you right now that you don’t.” She said matter of factly, tugging his hand past the ruins of Kawaii~Chan's old maid cafe. “You don’t do anything in halves Laurance. You feel with your entire heart and your sense of self. I always admired that about you, how passionate you are. You let your rage consume you and your love obliterate you. You feel until the point of destruction. If you need to think that you hate him, you don’t. If you did, you’d know.”

The wooden stairs were unstable and the buildings were overgrown with vines. “Yeah but… It’d be easier if I hated him.”

“So you think she’s a descendant of Lady Irene?” His voice was too breathy to really pull off the nonchalance he was going for, but it wasn’t like you found out the girl you were in love with was related to a literal god everyday. 

Emmalyn pushed her glasses further up her nose. “Well it would appear so, with the way she healed Dante after his injuries that no magicks could affect, and the way the relic seemed summoned to her in the dimension, not to mention Zanes anger at her interference, it seems like it’s the most reasonable conclusion to draw, of course-”

Laurance took a breath. “Can she access the dimension?”

Kenmur paused his working in the background of their home, and looked at the guard with something akin to pity. Whatever it was, it was making Laurence's skin prickle. 

“Er, maybe? We don’t know for sure yet. That’s a sort of muted reaction to finding out your friend has the powers of an all powerful being though. You’re really worried about Garroth huh?” Emmalyn frowned.

“Yeah of course, why aren’t you? He sacrificed his own safety for us to escape, are you not the slightest bit grateful? Do you even realise what Garroth went through to- I’m sorry.” He closed his eyes. “That was unfair of me, thank you for your help Emmalyn. Garroth is just… He’s my best friend. When Zane was taunting us, he called Aphmau the person Garroth loved most but he called me the person he trusted the most. I know without a doubt, Garroth would do anything he could to rescue me if our positions were reversed. He’d spend every waking hour searching for a solution, and I can’t help but do the same.” 

Emmalyn nodded solemnly. “There’s nothing you can do now Laurance, Kenmur and I will keep searching but you may as well just go join the rebuilding the wall efforts. If anything changes we’ll come get you.”

Emmalyn and Kenmurs new house was nice, cluttered with books and sketched notes, the kind of home that told a lot about the couple that inhabited it, but it was a far stroll away from the wall rebuilding effort base camp that Katelyn and Aphmau had set up. And there was nothing to do on the walk except think. They were so close, so insanely close to having access to the dimension. It was a restless energy that bounced with each step, it was a tantalising torture knowing that they were at the finish line and yet also not quite there. Everything needed to re-open the Irene Dimension was in their grasp, it was just how to use it that evaded them. 

“Emmalyn and Kenmur have anything new to say?” Aphmau called out, waving from the beginnings of the reconstruction as soon as she saw Laurance's shadowy figure curving around the trees. 

He shook his head, “nothing yet but they think your powers are definitely not normal, although I could have told them you were superhumanly gorgeous from the very beginning.”  
“I- You!-” whatever the rest of Aphmaus' indignant protests were had been cut off by the armed figure leaping into Laurances arms. Expecting an attack, he batted them away expertly before drawing his sword and promptly realising the bullying here would last him the rest of his life.

“Cadenza!” He sputtered. “You, look different?”

Gone were the flowy dresses and soft fabrics he associated with his sister, now replaced with battle worn armour, but the hideously orange colour of hair he used to share with her remained present still.

“Yeah well, this is what happens when you’re a lord! I always have to be prepared to protect my people!” If there was any doubt this was his sister, it was gone as soon as she flashed the signature Zvahl smile.

Her appearance seemed less shocking now in comparison to the ludicrous string of words that had just exited her mouth. “You?! Cadenza?!? Lord of Meteli?!”

“Didn’t expect that one aye bro?” The hair ruffling would have been put to an immediate halt with some well placed punches but Laurance was still too in shock to process the physical teasing.

Aphmau gently separated the two siblings before turning to her personal guard. “Uhm, you know what that means though, right Laurance?”

“Wait.. You mean to tell me…”

Cadenza's eyes softened. “Yeah, he passed away in his sleep. I’m so sorry Laurance but please, I’ve cried so much over our fathers passing, I don’t want to cry anymore.”

“N-no I’m sorry! It’s just.. Well I knew he was older and had heart problems since the day he adopted me but I never… Hayden was a great man. But, but you! Look at you Cadenza! You’ve changed from the prissy princess I knew into some kind of trash can!”

The punch there was well deserved, even Laurance had to admit.

“Still the same old Laurance I see.” Cadenza sighed, helping him back up to his feet with a smile. “I missed you so much brother.”

“You know me, if I can put a smile on anyone's face I’m more than happy to take a few punches.” Laurance smirked.

Cadenza's smile never lessened but her eyes seemed to dim at his statement. “Yeah, I know.”  
It was a good moment. His sister, the girl he loved, and him. The only thing off about the situation was the pang in his heart wishing Garroth were here to see it. Soon though, he would be. That was a vow Laurance made to both the universe and himself, soon Garroth would be back. And despite the worried undertones in his sister's voice at his words, for the first time since Garroth disappeared, Laurance felt a little less like breaking.

Quartz served a reminder of nothing but the cold emptiness of the Irene Dimension, the way the whiteness blanketed everything. It had been over a week now and still Laurance couldn’t get rid of the chills that crawled down his spine like spiders everytime he thought about that inane brightness. 

“You could, ah, you could lick it?”

“What.” 

Aphmaus face seemed unamused at best and he struggled to explain his thought process to her. “No so, the reason you may be able to open the portal is because you’re a descendant of Irene, so perhaps your DNA may help us access i-”

The teasing jab Aphmau directed towards his shoulder never hit, because on impact Laurance was no longer in the forest around Phoenix Drop with the remains of Zoe’s portal. He was somewhere else entirely. 

It was bright, not Irene Dimension levels of blinding whiteness, but the kind of brightness that comes from warm sunny days. The kind of brightness he associated with Cadenza's hair, a fiery safety sort of light. As much as he teased her about the colour and regretted his own venture into having that shade of locks, it was something he’d come to associate with warmth and happiness. That was the kind of bright sunlight on this world. It shone down on the fields of flowers and the large oak tree in the centre, smelling like freshly cut grass and pine, and the kind of clean linen and cinnamon that Laurance had come to associate with the feeling of home.

“Garroth? Jeez I didn’t think there was any way Aphmau hit me hard enough to cause me to hallucinate but I guess here we are.” The taller boy said, shock radiating through his entire being. It may have been a hallucination, but even knowing it was one didn’t stop the realness he felt from the situation right now. The Garroth before him looked exactly like the Garroth he knew and had left behind, and even knowing it was fake didn’t dispel the pang that wracked through his heart. 

“L-Laurance?” The blonde immediately cast aside his sword. “I- I thought you were Zane.” 

Laurance looked down at himself and shrugged. “Clearly not the High Priest of O’Khasis sorry to disappoint.”

That startled a laugh out of Hallucination Garroth. “No it’s… A welcome surprise surely. The last thing I remember was all of you escaping through the portal. And you… you left last.” His brow furrowed at that. “Why did you leave so much later than the others? It couldn’t have been more than a few heartbeats, but still.”

“If my subconscious is trying to play mental magicks on me I’ll bite, I get enough of this from the others in my real life, I don’t need the third degree from dreamland you.”

Laurance flopped down onto the grass, hands behind his head, and closed his eyes. If this was a dream, well… He’d been struggling to get any decent amount of rest lately. Every time he closed his eyes all he saw was that stagnant white palace, and Garroth telling him that Laurance betrayed him. If his mind decided to switch it up a bit, who was he to not take advantage?

“I can feel you watching me.”

“...”

“Fine.” Laurance took a breath in of the fresh air, refusing stubbornly to open his eyes however. “I guess I left last because I was angry. I am angry, I’m really mad at you, really.”

The muttered ‘hmm’ in the air let Laurance know Garroth was trying to find a way to respond to that statement. “Can I ask why?”

“Because… because you weren’t supposed to stay behind. You should have been there, with us. With me. It felt wrong to leave without you. We’re a team, and teams don’t leave members behind.” 

“Open your eyes Laurance.”

It took a moment's hesitation, the struggle between Laurence's own stubbornness and the desire to see his friend physically before his need to look Garroth in the face won out. 

“You did not leave me behind, I chose to stay behind. And frankly, I’m glad I did. I’m happy for you both, you deserve good things, but I’m afraid I’m too weak a man to have stayed and watched you two in love.” He admitted, staring off at the tree above them.

Laurance rolled his eyes. “Come on, telling me to open my eyes and not even looking at me when I do? And besides, who in the world do you mean?”

“You and Lady Aphmau,” He smiled, meeting Laurence's gaze. “It's okay, I saw you kissing in the woods. I’m happy for you both, truly, I just need some time.” 

“Idiot!” 

“What?”

“That was illusion magicks, another lame stunt pulled by Zane. If I were to properly court Aphmau, I’d never have done anything without telling you first. I’m a flirt Garroth but I’m not entirely without manners.” There were unspoken words there too. How Laurance would never in a million years take anything away from anyone he cared about, and he cared about Garroth far more than most.

“Ah.”

“Yeah.”

The silence there was less terrifying than silence normally was to Laurance. There was something about it being there with Garroth, something about being with Garroth, that made it less menacing. 

“Fifteen years have passed, Emmalyn was right. A minute in the Irene Dimension is a year in our dimension, and-” Meteli’s Casanova didn’t even realise his rambling as Hallucination Garroth carded his fingers through Laurence's hair. It was nice, he wasn’t sure when the last time anyone had played with his hair was. Cadenza combed it sometimes before he’d cut it short, but that didn’t have the gentle intimacy this did. There was no other word for being in Garroths presence other than soothing. There was a kind of safety that came with being around the other man, the complete feeling of absolute trust. It was a nice sensation.

“Go on, so Levin is head guard now and what else were you going to say?” Garroth prompted.

“It’s weird how different everything is now. Like, it’s the same Phoenix Drop but it’s not our Phoenix Drop, the one we know. I guess I just miss it.” Laurance finished lamely. It wasn’t what he’d meant to say. 

He’d meant to say “I guess I just miss you.”

Waking up from that nap did an absolute wreck on Laurances head. The ache pounding in his skull was worse than that time Garroth had knocked him out to steal the amulet. Speaking of Garroth that dream was… weird. Very high levels of weird but, as long as it wasn’t another nightmare he couldn’t complain.

“Laurance! Oh thank Irene we found you!” Zoey yelled, and all of a sudden Laurance was swarmed by familiar faces hugging him with teary eyes.

“Found? Aphmau knocked me out. It's not like I was lost or anything.” He squinted his eyes at the group of them. “And I thought I was supposed to be the dramatic one here.”

Aphmau shook her head, eyes wide. “No Laurance, you were standing in the portal joking around and I went to hit your shoulder to tell you to knock it off, and the instant I touched your skin you just vanished. It’s like you disappeared, we thought…”

“We thought you had been transported back to the Irene Dimension.” Emmalyn cut in. “It’s a reasonable conclusion to arrive at.”

So that was real then. All of it. Somehow Aphmau had sent both him and Garroth to a pocket dimension, and all of that hadn’t been a hallucination. All of the talking, the rambling… Garroth playing with his hair… The intimacy of that not having been a dream drew a blush to Laurances cheeks. “Ah, yeah I was… Not in the Irene Dimension.” And then he explained it to the small crowd surrounding him, skipping a few of the more unimportant details, like how he knew Garroth was there because he could smell him, or the way Garroths skin felt soft against his scalp. 

“Interesting.” Emmalyn murmured, having jotted down most of what Laurance had said into a notebook. “Laurance, mind taking a walk with me? The rest of you go about your day as usual. I have a hypothesis to test.”

Phoenix Drops citizens seemed more than happy to obey Emmalyn's requests, and Laurance couldn’t blame her. When the girl went full research mode she was awfully intimidating. “Can I help you?”

“So.” The blonde librarian began, tapping a quill against her glasses. “Aphmau can access these portals of her own accord, probably due to her access to Lady Irene's heritage and relic. This gives her some amount of control over the Irene dimension and everyone in it. Meaning she can theoretically pull you and Garroth into your own side dimension. However, she can’t control it. Clearly she can’t because if she could, Garroth would be here right now. Naturally, I know you don’t have answers to all of life's questions, believe me I probably know more of the answers than you, however you do happen to hold a key to my current hypothesis of why this just occurred.” 

Laurance blinked. That was a lot of information in very little time, but such did life go when one had a discussion with Emmalyn. “What would that question be?”

“Are you in love with Garroth?”

And then suddenly it all clicked. His insistent desire to prove himself to Garroth, the need to be fiercely competitive to show Garroth he was worthy, he was enough. The late night patrols spent talking about anything and everything. The way his heart had clenched up when he realised Garroth had betrayed them. His refusal to leave him behind, the way he couldn’t just let Garroth fall into Zane’s darkness because he knew that Garroth wouldn’t, if someone just knocked some sense into him. Garroth Ro’meave was a fighter, and one who had more than earned Laurence's respect. He was loyal, and he was determined, and most of all he was kind. Growing up with people like Zane couldn’t have been easy, but Garroth had somehow managed to not only make it out of that household, but to maintain something a lot of people struggled with; a sense of good. Above everything else in life, Garroth Ro’meave was good. He made mistakes, and he learned, and he struggled and he fought and sometimes he lost, but that was okay because he tried. And Laurance didn’t mind. He didn’t mind the flaws or the mistakes or the self sacrificing idiocy that came with that blonde-haired fool. The way he wanted to walk down the ruined streets he had called a home and be comforted by one person and one person alone. The way silence seemed bearable around him, the way home felt right, even if that home was some unknown flower field, the way his hands felt in his hair. 

“I just need to know since likely an emotional bond is what triggered the-”

“Yeah. I’m in love with Garroth.”

And Garroth was an entire dimension away, but something in Laurence's heart fluttered at that realisation. If Emmalyn knew how Aphmau had created the pocket dimension, maybe, just maybe, it could be recreated. Laurence could potentially spend more time talking to him until they figured out a way to bring him back. It wasn’t an if, it was a when. Garroth would be brought back to Phoenix Drop because someway or another Laurance would be damned if he confessed his love in a made up dimension composed purely of emotion. No, he wanted to tell Garroth he loved him in a place with meaning, because Garroth meant more to him than words could express. If he was rejected that would be okay, lord knows it would hurt more than the times Aphmau had rejected his false declarations of love, but above all else Laurance wanted to know that Garroth was safe. Laurance didn’t care if Garroth returned his affections or not, he simply cared that Garroth would be happy whatever happened. That was all he could hope for, and to him it seemed like a damn good wish. 

The explosion rocked the entirety of Phoenix Drop. It was hard to miss such an extreme blast. Laurance though, tried his best to. It meant Garroth was back, and surely he’d want to spend all of his time back with Aphmau first, after all, Laurance was the only one he’d talked to for the past year or so. He couldn’t blame him for being sick of his presence, and he-

“I talked with Emmalyn.” That gravelly softly O’khasis accent couldn’t help but surprise him with each passing conversation.

“Oh?”

“She told me her theory on why the pocket dimension opened.”

“Now did she?” Laurance murmured, trying his best to sound disinterested as Garroth sat down beside him on Phoenix Drops dock. 

“Before…” Laurance could feel Garroths eyes on him as the blonde talked. “Before the Irene Dimension, when Zane said I had been betrayed by the person I loved most and the person I trusted the most, there wasn’t a pause in there.”

Laurence raised an eyebrow. “I don’t follow.”

“He didn’t hesitate in between terms because they weren’t separate. Both were referring to one person.” 

A small smile stretched across Laurence's face. “In that case, I hope you and Lady Aphmau are happy.” 

“I take it back. I take it all back, forget this happened.” Garroth groaned.

“Nope. This is it now, this is your life. Happy with your decision?” He joked.

All Garroth did was smile. “Yes, I think I am.”

“Then next time don’t make me wait two years for you to tell me that in person.” Laurance rolled his eyes, although the flush on his cheeks was rather telling. 

Garroth shook his head, a smile still present. “And you? Happy with your decision?”

“Yes I think-” And he remembered Zoeys words. If you did, you’d know. 

“Yeah. I really am.”


End file.
